Pope Francis with police chiefs at a meeting of the Santa Marta Group which brings together bishops and police forces around the world to eradicate human trafficking and modern-day slavery. (Santa Marta Group)

Pope Francis was given a “thunderous salute” today for his work over the past five years in combatting modern slavery and human trafficking — a priority for the Holy Father since the beginning of his pontificate.

John McCarthy, chair of the Sydney Archdiocesan Anti-Slavery Taskforce, told delegates at a Vatican conference on Monday that the Holy Father is “perhaps the greatest anti-slavery campaigner in our world today” and that tomorrow’s anniversary since his election is a “milestone for the anti-slavery movement in the contemporary world.”

McCarthy, who served as Australia’s ambassador to the Holy See from 2012 to 2016, noted Francis’ “constant flow of statements and exhortations” on this issue, that it is a “cause dear to his heart and always high in his priorities,” and praised the Pope’s “firm and consistent” belief that “we will be victorious over modern slavery and human trafficking.”

Highlighting how the Holy Father is continually calling on the world and the Church to step up and defeat the scourge, McCarthy said the Pope is offering “one of the most inspiring visions of freedom in our world” and that the Holy Father’s words “sound out like a trumpet that shall never call retreat.”

“So, on this fifth anniversary of his Pontificate, a thunderous salute to Francis comes from the peripheries; from far away Australia,” McCarthy told delegates at the conference hosted by the Pontifical Academy for Sciences on Modern Slavery, Human Trafficking and Access to Justice for the Poor and Vulnerable.

Extent of Modern Slavery

According to the latest estimates, 40.3 million people in the world today are victims of modern slavery, which the UK charity Anti-Slavery.org describes as “forced prostitution, forced labor, forced begging, forced criminality, domestic servitude, forced marriage, and forced organ removal.”

Human trafficking, it adds, is the “recruitment, harboring or transporting” of people into “a situation of exploitation through the use of violence, deception or coercion and forced to work against their will.”

Most of the victims of modern slavery (71%) are female, and one in four of them are children. Rates are highest in Africa where there are 7.6 victims for every 1000 people.

Francis has persistently called attention to the menace, telling a group of anti-modern slavery campaigners only last month that he has “never lost an occasion to denounce human trafficking as a crime against humanity.” He has also described it as “an open wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ.” His 2015 World Day of Peace Message was dedicated to the issue.

The Holy Father, whose concerns are said to date from being deeply affected by meeting victims of sexual exploitation in Buenos Aires, made combatting it a commitment of his pontificate in the summer of 2013 when he wrote a short note on the back of an envelope to fellow Argentine Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. “It would be good to examine human trafficking and modern slavery,” the Pope wrote, adding that “organ trafficking could be examined in connection with human trafficking."

Since then, a series of events have been held at the academy located in Casina Pio IV palazzo in the Vatican Gardens, but the Pope’s concern for the issue has led to a number of concrete initiatives. In 2014, 63 ecumenical and interreligious leaders signed a joint declaration at the Vatican committing themselves to ending the global crime. The initiative came from the Global Freedom Network, an organization which also drew inspiration from the Pope’s commitment to the issue.

In that same year, the Pope also inspired the bishops' conference of England and Wales to set up the Santa Marta Group, an alliance of international police chiefs and bishops from around the world tasked with eradicating human trafficking and modern-day slavery. The group held its 5th meeting at the Vatican last month, during which the Pope met with 110 people representing survivors and young people.

Focusing on Supply Lines

At today’s Vatican conference,John McCarthy pointed out that the Pope was “more than an inspiration” in having the issue included in the Sustainable Development Goals which calls on governments to eradicate the scourge by 2030, and end child labor by 2025.

The Church in Australia has been one of the leaders in following through on Francis’ commitment, drawing up a taskforce and a three-pronged anti-slavery strategy comprising an anti-slavery supply chain strategy, education and anti-slavery welfare services.

Last March, Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney publicly committed his archdiocese to eradicating modern slavery in its supply chains, following the Vatican’s example of “slave-proofing” its own procurement practices and supply lines.

The Australian Model contains a “robust” and “superior” system of “compliance due diligence,” McCarthy said, and efforts are underway to develop an “ethical purchasing guide” to be used in parishes, families and communities. The archdiocese is also trying to get public and private sector organizations to implement similar supply chain strategies, and hopes their approach will be adopted in the Church worldwide.

But none of this would have been possible without Francis’ leadership in this area, McCarthy said. “It had always been a second level issue, never getting beyond poverty and hunger — it never crashed through that ceiling,” he told the Register March 11.

“Francis crashed it through. He took it there. It’s now a crime against humanity.”

If he is supposedly against human trafficking, why does he vilify those trying to control illegal immigration, the prime means of achieving human trafficking.

Posted by D Gaetano on Tuesday, Mar, 13, 2018 10:07 PM (EDT):

Leo—

I quoted Pope Pius XI, and you did not respond to that quotation. Instead, you created a straw man argument by bringing up Ayn Rand.

Postulating that one’s income should first provide for the legitimate needs of one’s family, is not contrary to reason.

Most government entitlement programs simply create and institutionalize dependency, rather than relieve “urgent necessity”. [Were the latter the actual case, we would observe the government distributing bags of beans, not ‘Freedom’ debit cards allowing the acquisition of more expensive and/or unnecessary and even unhealthy food products.]

The responsibility to pay taxes does not justify inappropriate governmental use of those collected taxes.

As a general matter, I would point out that papal encyclicals have a higher level of authority than any catechism, and that the Scriptures have a higher level of authority even than papal encyclicals. We learn from the Scriptures that supporting one’s family is among the most basic of moral responsibilities. Any government actions that hinder this, even for supposed ‘charitable purposes’, are not in accord with Christian principles (as Pope Pius XI stated).

Trying to argue that socialism is in accord with Christianity is a futile endeavor.

Posted by Leo on Tuesday, Mar, 13, 2018 4:08 PM (EDT):

@D Gaetano
“No one should be forced by government ‘charitable’ programs to help provide material needs for others.”

That is not a Catholic Christian approach - it sounds like the “gospel of Ayn Rand”.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says (my emphasis):

2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is NO THEFT IF consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the UNIVERSAL DESTINATION OF GOODS. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one’s disposal and use the property of others.
[2409 condemns tax evasion]

2239-2240 It is the duty of citizens to contribute along with the civil authorities to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, SOLIDARITY, and freedom. The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity. Submission to legitimate authorities and service of the COMMON GOOD require citizens to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community.
Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to PAY TAXES, to exercise the right to vote, and to defend one’s country:

1897-1898 The human person needs to live in society. Society is not for him an extraneous addition but a requirement of his nature. Through the exchange with others, MUTUAL SERVICE and dialogue with his brethren, man develops his potential; he thus responds to his vocation.
Every human community needs an authority to govern it.16 The foundation of such authority lies in human nature. It is necessary for the unity of the state. Its role is to ensure as far as possible the common good of the society.

D Gaetano, if you are a catholic (and not trolling), I urge you explore Catholic Social Teaching eg California Catholic Conference of Bishops has a primer on how to start thinking about taxation www.cacatholic.org/cst-taxes

Taxation is off-topic - let us support the Holy Father in his crusade against modern slavery.

Posted by D Gaetano on Monday, Mar, 12, 2018 4:11 PM (EDT):

Socialism is incremental slavery. No one should be forced by government ‘charitable’ programs to help provide material needs for others. As Pope Pius XI wrote in “Divini Redemtoris”, 49. “… a ‘charity’ which deprives the workingman of the salary to which he has a strict title in justice, is not charity at all, but only its empty name and hollow semblance.”

Posted by cthlc12345 on Monday, Mar, 12, 2018 12:22 PM (EDT):

The existence of slavery today is always a severely under-reported issue.

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Edward Pentin began reporting on the Pope and the Vatican with Vatican Radio before moving on to become the Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Register. He has also reported on the Holy See and the Catholic Church for a number of other publications including Newsweek, Newsmax,Zenit, The Catholic Herald, and The Holy Land Review, a Franciscan publication specializing in the Church and the Middle East. Edward is the author of “The Rigging of a Vatican Synod? An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family”, published by Ignatius Press. Follow him on Twitter @edwardpentin